Over the past few months you may have noticed more frequently in our advertising as well as in-store signage, ratings on certain wines labeled "Kahn's Staff Value Ratings." You may be wondering what exactly these mean. Sure, you're probably familiar with ratings from big publications like Wine Spectator, Wine Advocate, Wine Enthusiast, and many others. I've heard lots of questions since we've been promoting these scores: "How do you rate the wines?", "What does this score really mean?", "Is this a valid rating or just a marketing gimmick to sell more wine?" Well, I'd like to clear up exactly what we mean by these scores.

What makes us qualified to bestow such ratings on the wines we sell? To start, our staff gets the opportunity to taste almost all of the wines we sell before we bring them into the store. In large part, this actually determines most of the wines we decide to carry. We've been rating wines for this purpose as long as any of us can remember, and recently thought that it would be a great reference for our customers as well. Unlike the wine publications we aren't only rating wine simply on the characteristics of the wine itself, but also on it's retail price, thinking of quality vs. value. This is very beneficial because a 94-point wine that costs $49.99 does not have the same perceived value that a 94-point wine that costs $19.99.

Here is what our actual voting sheet looks like:

As you can see, our rating system is broken down into four tiers that really deal with how we believe our customers will feel about the wine and the manner in which they will want to purchase it. The first tier (0-84 points) means we think the product is inferior and would not feel right to send it home with you. The next tier, (85-89 points) indicates that we think this is a solid wine and you will enjoy it but probably won't be interested in purchasing it again. The next category (90-94 points) is really the meat of our business. This tier is for wines that we believe our customers will think are really good and will want to buy again on a regular basis. And finally the final level (95-100 points) is reserved for wines that we think you'll try and love and will make you want to come back and buy a case!

As an example, a few items that have recently had an impressive response are the wines of Domaine de Fontvive, a winery in the Rhone region of France. These five wines all scored remarkably well. The Côtes du Ventoux received 94 points at $12.99, the Côtes du Rhone was 96 points at $13.99, the Sablet was 97 points at $18.99, the Vacqueyras was 92 points at $22.99, and the Gigondas was 95 points at $26.99. As you can see based on our scale above, we believe this winery puts out some incredible wines!

But these aren't the only wines we think you'll love. Stop by Kahn's and look for our "Kahn's Staff Value Ratings" to find your next bottle wine and maybe you'll love it so much you'll want to buy it again and again!